


take all the time you need

by peraltad



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Even is the sweetest, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 12:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11231331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peraltad/pseuds/peraltad
Summary: The first time it happens, they’re grocery shopping together for the first time. And despite everything, Isak still hasn’t managed to shake it—the doubt, the fear.





	take all the time you need

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't read over this at all because I needed to post it before I had time to contemplate all the people on the internet that would potentially be reading this. Point out any grammar/spelling mistakes you find to me and/or tell me what you think, if you feel like it :)

The first time it happens, he’s with Even, and it’s during another first of theirs—grocery shopping together.

It starts out with Even suggesting they split up to make the trip faster, a suggestion to which Isak scrunches his eyes brows up dubiously, to which Even laughs. “Okay,” Even says. “Together it is.”

Even looks smug, and it’s only then Isak figures out Even’s suggestion hadn’t been serious.

Ten minutes later and standing in the grocery aisle facing 60 different seasonings in the same little bottle, Isak lets out a long sigh. “We should’ve brought Eskild. He would know how to do this.”

“Would he, though?”

“Uh.” Isak thinks about it. “Well.”

They both laugh, and they both stare at each other when they're done laughing (like a fucking cheesy, badly-acted romcom), but when they start to lean closer, Even’s eyes drift to the right—back to the shelf they’re standing in front of—and he says, “Look—cardamom.”

Even reaches past Isak’s shoulder to pick up the spice.

“That’s not what we came here for,” Isak reminds him.

“It’s better than nothing, isn’t it?” Even flicks his eyebrows upward, shaking the bottle of cardamom at Isak as if it will change Isak’s mind about using basil in their spaghetti sauce for dinner.

Isak puffs out a laugh. “Dork.”

Even sets the cardamom back on the shelf and leans in toward Isak. “Yeah,” he says, and Isak’s entire abdomen bursts with an indescribable feeling. The feeling leaves him breathless and he can’t help but lean in once again—a wide smile playing on his lips—and kiss him in the grocery store aisle. He doesn’t exactly know how long it lasts (there’s not tongue but it’s certainly not just a peck), but when he leans back, Even has somehow grabbed basil from the shelf and put it in their basket.

“Sometimes I can swear you’re fucking omniscient,” Isak says. He goes to kiss Even again (and perhaps a few more times after that), but before he gets close enough his eyes stray over Even’s shoulder to where a woman is clutching oregano in her left hand and herding a small child away from them with her other, a grimace twisting her mouth as she stares straight at him.

Isak feels his stomach turn cold in place of the warm feeling from just seconds before. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. She merely turns around and walks quickly away, leaning down to whisper into the child’s ear as they turn and disappear from his view.

He wonders what she said to the little girl. He wonders if the little girl agreed.

He doesn’t notice he’s slipped his hand out of Even’s grip until Even brings his hand up to his shoulder and says “Isak?” like he has no idea what had happened.

The hand he’d previously been holding slides up his arm to his shoulder and presses down, attempting to ground Isak, but Isak has already slipped into his own mind and is staring down at the floor, unable to look up into the eyes of Even or anyone else in the aisle. Hanging his head low to avoid facing himself is a habit he had somehow broken out of (a habit Even had somehow helped break him out of), and now.

Now he’s finally faced something he’d spent years of his life in fear of, and he’s come back full circle. Or at least that’s how it feels.

“Isak, hey, what happened?” The hand Even had rested on his shoulder had disappeared when Isak subconsciously stepped away from him. His boyfriend had made a move to touch him since then.

Isak looks up. They’re in the aisle alone, now, and still he can’t meet Even’s eyes.

He bites his cheek.

“Isak?”

“It’s—it’s not a big deal.” Isak shakes his head, swipes his thumb under his nose, and finally looks up at Even. He hopes he doesn’t look as bad as his entire body is feeling (chest tight, stomach fluttering, throat closed up, hands shaking). He looks down again and quietly mutters, “It shouldn’t be such a…”

“Isak.” Even ducks his head, trying to coax Isak into meeting his eyes without touching him. Even when nobody’s around to watch them, it feels too intimate. “Isak, it can’t be nothing if it’s hurting you this much.”

With these words, Even gestures with his hand to Isak’s face. Isak nearly manages to chuckle—of course hoping he didn’t look like as much of a disaster as he was feeling.

Isak shakes his head at himself. Takes a deep, shaky breath. “Let’s just go. Let’s go.”

Even studies him for a moment. His eyes are soft, as always, and it looks like his eyebrows are pinched in concern but he’s trying to look calm about it. (He’s not really succeeding. Isak guesses that’s the kind of thing neither of them are any good at.)

“Okay,” he says.

…

“There was—there was this woman.”

Isak is lying on his bed in the kollektiv, one arm under his own head and another picking at the hem of his sweatshirt. It’s been over a half hour since the moment in the store, and he can’t seem to get the look on her face out of his head, he can’t stop wondering what she’d said to the little girl, can’t stop imagining all the harsh words she could’ve whispered to the her and to anyone else like them she’d come across. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth and an unrelenting sting behind his eyes.

He shouldn’t be freaking out this much. He _shouldn’t_.

It’s only one person among the hundreds they must’ve come across on the streets.

He can’t help it. He can’t make it stop. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

“Isak, you can tell me.”

Isak lets out a breath he hadn’t realized had lodged in his chest. “She—” His throat involuntarily closes around the next few words. “I don’t know,” he says instead. Any words he comes up with to say to Even don’t sound as big as they feel. “She—had a little girl with her. And she—”

Even—wonderful, absolutely beautiful Even—lowers himself down to lie beside Isak. Isak turns to him, and he looks like he already knows. Isak can’t stand it.

“I don’t know why I’m—I can’t really—after all this time—”

“Isak,” Even says. His voice is even softer than his eyes. “I get it. You don’t need to explain if you don’t want to.”

Isak’s not sure what he wants at the moment, because although explaining is something he feels like he needs to do, the words won’t come out. And as much as a hug sounds like it would fix everything, his body won’t move. It won’t.

He feels like he’s 16 again, holding his breath during every conversation and slowly learning to hide who he is. He feels like he needs to start hiding again.

“Even, I—I don’t—I just spent so much time hiding because of people like—like that. And I don’t know why, even after everything, even knowing that the people who matter don’t care about it, it’s just—”

Isak stops and takes a slow breath. “It shouldn’t be a big deal. Everything I’ve learned says that I shouldn’t be—taking this how I am.”

Even tentatively reaches out a hand. It hovers over his upper arm for a moment, and when Isak doesn’t move away, he sets it down gently and rubs slow circles atop the sleeve of his hoodie. “Isak, there’s no _supposed to_ with things like this. I think—I think everyone deserves to feel the things they feel without having to compare it to some sort of—some sort of bullshit ideal life.”

Isak’s immobility breaks and he reaches one hand of to tangle it with Even’s.

“And just because you’ve come out,” Even continues, “doesn’t mean you’re suddenly not allowed to be afraid. And although what that woman, or anyone, thinks about about you or us doesn't matter, what you feel does."

Some part of Isak wants to jokingly protest that he’s not afraid of anything, but he thinks, given the circumstances, it would not be the right time.

He doesn’t know what to say. So instead he pulls himself closer to Even, and they wrap their arms around each other, breaths mingling and legs crossing over one another’s.

A few moments pass before Isak says, “Thank you.”

There’s something else he wants to say instead, but a lot has already happened today.

“Thank you,” Even says back.

The grocery bags are scattered on the floor just inside Isak’s room, and when Eskild walks in looking for them an hour later, he finds the two boys lying asleep, nose to nose. He silently gathers the groceries and makes the spaghetti himself.

…

Months later, a week into June, Isak posts a picture on his Instagram for his (startlingly large amount of) followers to see, captioned “good pride month peeps,” and he can’t think of a single time he’s felt more at peace.


End file.
